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I tried a product called Kavinace by NeuroScience which contains Phenibut. It had so many good reviews I thought I'd give it a try. But.....It didn't even make me yawn! I have read about people using Phenibut in larger quantities but honestly, I don't know how safe it is. There is a product that Thorne Research makes called PharmaGaba, it is a naturally fermented, non-synthetic form of GABA. It kind of helped when I tried it, was sort of relaxing.
It is possible that for people who have taken GABA medications for an extended period of time, likely even meds like ambien and lyrica, Phenibut and other such products will be so mild they won't have much effect. BUT- maybe your alternative therapist can recommend a Phenibut product that is more potent. Like I said, I just don't know how much is safe and which brands are reliable in their manufacturing.
P.S. Have you ever tried L-Theanine?

Thanks TheMoonIsBlue for your reply.
No, I never heard of L-Theanine, but i just googled it now and it sounds interesting.
Have you tried it?
It sounds like it's pretty safe.
The question is: does it work?

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many switch from klonopin to valium and then taper off valium as its easier to come off. u could also look into baclofen which is a muscle relaxer and does effect benzo receptor sites but differently to klonopin and valium.

Sometimes i just think our brain has some type of permanent injury that causes anxiety or sleep problems and we will always need these types of meds to sleep etc. I know coming off isnt easy and alot will say its withdrawal but i wonder with cfs if its not just withdrawal but just our old condition returning that was kept in control with benzo's

Senior Member

many switch from klonopin to valium and then taper off valium as its easier to come off. u could also look into baclofen which is a muscle relaxer and does effect benzo receptor sites but differently to klonopin and valium.

Sometimes i just think our brain has some type of permanent injury that causes anxiety or sleep problems and we will always need these types of meds to sleep etc. I know coming off isnt easy and alot will say its withdrawal but i wonder with cfs if its not just withdrawal but just our old condition returning that was kept in control with benzo's

Thanks for the info about the Valium for weaning off Klonopin.
I have had the same thoughts as you as far as is it really withdrawal or is it that my body really needs it?
I have tried so many times to slowly wean off and I seem to be stuck at a dosage where i can't get beyond it.
I had decided that my body needs it what can I do.

Recently I bought a Zeo machine. It's a machine that has a headband piece that you put around your forehead and
it records your nightly sleep pattern. It tells you how much of your sleep was light, REM or Deep and how many
times you have woken during the night.

I bought the machine because I have major issues and take a lot of drugs in order to be able to sleep for the night.
I take 3mg Klonopin, 12.5 CR Ambien and two Tylenol PMs. I need all three in order to sleep. I sleep about 7-8 hours
a night but, still wake up tired. Hence the purchase of Zeo machine in order to see the quality of my sleep.

The major problem that I see is that I get very minimal deep sleep and if I do get it, it's in the morning just before I wake up.
In normal sleep patterns, you reach deep sleep in your first cycle of sleep.

I did some research and read that Klonopin robs you of deep sleep.

That is the reason that I have a renewed interest in decreasing the dosage of Klonopin and hopefully go off it entirely.

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hi nielk, your sleep machine sounds interesting, do u have a link to it? I use to be worried about benzos robbing me of deep sleep but any sleep is better then no sleep, also no studies where benzo's combined with other meds effect deep sleep and i dont have a link to the study but someone on here said that people on benzos long term do end up sleep in stage 4 sleep or maybe better to say doesnt inhibit stage 4 sleep in chronic users. Sleep i think is just going to be one of those things we are always going to have to medicate for. I have found some of the anticonvulsants helpful for sleep eg lyrica and topamax but do get tolerent of them so need to swap them around every few weeks, there an option to use instead of klonopin but keep the ambien going. tylenol pm could be giving u the hangover, maybe look at swapping it with something else, look into atarx its also an antihistamine, trazadone is suppose to have minimal hangover. example lyrica 150mg with ambien and trazodone50-100mg. and need to constantly swap these things around. baclofen i mentioned earlier isnt much chop on its own but with other sleep meds improves sleep quality, theres a few studies showing baclofen increases deep sleep and growth hormone production and works in a similar way to xyrem.

Senior Member

Hi, Nielk; you probably know about this, but if you really want to get off or lower Klonipin, you should look at Helen Ashton's manual, http://www.benzo.org.uk/manual/index.htm , which gives a lot of info on benzos and how to reduce or withdraw. You should certainly not try to just stop from 3 mg--I get withdrawal when I stop from .12 mg! ( a quarter of a .5 mg tablet). Cheney loves the stuff--I distrust it, though it has its uses. And unfortunately, Zopiclone, which I am using in low dose now, uses mostly the same receptors, though it is technically not a benzo. Sleep is a problem! Best, Chris

Senior Member

I know that everyone is saying that if you are on Benzos for an extended time, it loses it's potency and this
makes sense to me.
Yet, when i try to budge my Klonopin down from this specific point of 3mg which I've been taking for a couple
of years, I get very bad side effects.
I've also been on Topomax. Not for sleep though. It was prescribed for me for migraine prevention. It worked.
When I got it up to a certain dosage, I got much fewer headaches but, unfortunately after being on it for
over six months the cognitive side effects got too hard to bear.
Xyrem I believe if tolerated, gives you the best quality sleep possible.
I tried it about three years ago. It worked like a charm for a week and then I had a very scary psychotic episode as
a side effect.

Senior Member

No experience with Phenibut but did look into it when I started having horrible insomnia. I was on Klonopin for a few years at 10mg but it wasnt working anymore. My doctor tried a few different sleep meds to add to the Klonopin but they didnt help me sleep and made me feel awful. I researched (we are all so good at that....) and found Flexeril was supposed to help you get into the deeper stages of sleep. I am now on a very low dose (.5mg) of Klonopin and take a 10mg Flexeril and Melatonin and the combination has worked wonderfully!!! Last week I woke up 2 nights because I was stressed and couldnt go back to sleep. I took a second Flexeril on those nights around 3am. When I first woke those two mornings I was sluggish but I felt REALLY good those days once I did wake up. I believe I must have gotten deeper sleep than normal. I guess I would know for sure if I had that machine. :-/

Amyway, I too am not ready to give up my Klonopin completely but I think it works well with the addition of a muscle relaxer and may help you wean off the higher dose of Klonopin.

Senior Member

No experience with Phenibut but did look into it when I started having horrible insomnia. I was on Klonopin for a few years at 10mg but it wasnt working anymore. My doctor tried a few different sleep meds to add to the Klonopin but they didnt help me sleep and made me feel awful. I researched (we are all so good at that....) and found Flexeril was supposed to help you get into the deeper stages of sleep. I am now on a very low dose (.5mg) of Klonopin and take a 10mg Flexeril and Melatonin and the combination has worked wonderfully!!! Last week I woke up 2 nights because I was stressed and couldnt go back to sleep. I took a second Flexeril on those nights around 3am. When I first woke those two mornings I was sluggish but I felt REALLY good those days once I did wake up. I believe I must have gotten deeper sleep than normal. I guess I would know for sure if I had that machine. :-/

Amyway, I too am not ready to give up my Klonopin completely but I think it works well with the addition of a muscle relaxer and may help you wean off the higher dose of Klonopin.

Senior Member

I am especially interested in the Zeo. What do you think of it? Have you been able to get accurate and useful information from it? Did that provide any insights for you? My son's doc recently suggested that to assess his sleep. Reviews in Amazon and other places are very mixed from 'its a toy' to 'its great.

Senior Member

I am especially interested in the Zeo. What do you think of it? Have you been able to get accurate and useful information from it? Did that provide any insights for you? My son's doc recently suggested that to assess his sleep. Reviews in Amazon and other places are very mixed from 'its a toy' to 'its great.

It's not a medical device.
What it works for for me is that I can record my sleep pattern. It will show me in the morning how my sleep was.
How long I've spent in light sleep, REM sleep and deep sleep.
It will also show how many times you were awake (for 2minutes or more)
I find it's a good too for tracking your sleep.

Let's say you make a change in you regimen whether it's a new medication, new diet or supplement, you can then
see how it's affecting the quality of sleep. (the quantity is obvious.

The coaching part which they advertise strongly, I find useless. they just tell you common sense things which we all know.
The going to be hygiene. winding down in the evening. Not having coffee after threePM, no alcohol at night, have comfortable mattress and pillow and so forth.
You can dowlnoad your information on their website and add a journal to it. So if your activities were different one day, you would want to record it and then see how it effected your sleep.
They also tell you what the norm is for your age so you have what to compare it to. they have a support system that you can ask them questions but beware they will not answer anything that is medically related like what medicine to take or
change in medication or supplement.

Like I said, I find it useful tool to track my sleep and then I have to be my own detective as to what to do about the problems that show up.

Senior Member

Senior Member

Nielk, may I recommend Tryptophan ? It is an amino acid often deficient in our diets. It is used by the body to produce the neurotransmitter serotonin, without it, you cant sleep and your body cannot feel relaxed. Theanine produces alpha waves in the brain but serotonin makes delta waves to help you get into deep sleep.

It is a different chemically path way from GABA-klono. Melatonin may also help.

Senior Member

Phenibut has terrible tolerance, dependence, and withdrawal issues. It makes getting off benzodiazepines seem like a walk in the park. It really has no business being OTC and if you do experiment with it please give it the respect it deserves as a fairly hardcore drug.

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i found no effect until i took 4000mg and yes tolerance comes on quick, good to use for a couple of nights a week and month off every few months. I didnt find any dependance or withdrawal issues but then i didnt use it every night either.